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Kostandi, Kiriak (Konstyantynovych)
(b Dofinovka, Odessa region, 3 Oct 1852; d Odessa, 31 Oct 1921). Ukrainian painter. He studied at the Odessa Drawing School (1870–74), then at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg (1874) under Pavel Chistyakov (1832–1919). He made his début at the 12th exhibition of the WANDERERS (Rus. Peredvizhniki) with the painting By a Wounded Comrade (1884; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.). At the next exhibition he showed Going Out into the World (1885; Kiev, Mus. Ukrain. A.). These works are in the tradition of Vasily Perov and Vladimir Makovsky, depicting exclusively psychological-narrative subjects in the style of Critical Realism. Kostandi played an important role in introducing the ideology of the Wanderers to the Ukraine, where he taught at the Odessa Drawing School after graduating from the Academy of Arts. In 1890 he set up the Fellowship of South Russian Artists, effectively a branch of the St Petersburg Wanderers, and was its director from 1902 until his death. In Odessa Kostandi worked with the artists Nikolay Kuznetsov (1850–1929) and G. A. Ladyzhensky (1853–1916) and was an active opponent of the development of new trends in art, excluding avant-garde works from the Fellowship’s exhibitions. His dogmatism hindered his own development and he painted little, producing variations on the same subjects, such as Sick Woman at Her Dacha, Geese and Early Spring, 1892 (all Kiev, Mus. Ukrain. A.). He helped set up the Odessa Art Museum in 1898–9 and from 1917 was director of the museum and head of the easel painting studio in the reorganized art school.
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